Doug Kutilek, Bible Bill Aberhart, and B. G. Wilkinson

Introduction

Doug Kutilek complained about a deception by David Otis Fuller, then perpetrated on the Christian community one of his own – the lie that “King James Onlyism” is a Seventh-Day Adventist product. Gary Hudson fanned the flames until he lost the faith altogether. Kevin Bauder and Roy Beacham bought and then resold this bill of goods in the book One Bible Only? Examining Exclusive Claims for the King James Bible (Kregel Publications, Grand Rapids, MI, 2001, p 44, e.g.). No matter the refutation offered, many of these men share a common flaw of never retracting their mistake.

Try to point out to these “true believers” that this is not correct, and they barricade themselves in a refuge of lies. Demonstrate historical evidence of people who believed the King James translation alone was the inspired word of God before Benjamin Wilkinson wrote Our Authorized Bible Vindicated – or before he was even born – and they assert it is not the same thing! Some “true believers” just cannot be helped. And, it seems, no matter the evidence, the purveyors of this story are unwilling to correct it. “That’s my story and I’m sticking to it,” they apparently agree.

Kutilek on the origin of “King James Onlyism”

Notice Kutilek from “The Unlearned Men: The True Genealogy and Genesis of King-James-Version-Onlyism” (Christian Answers, Vol. 2, No. 4, [n.d., circa 1997]).

“From Wilkinson in the first generation, through Ray in the second, and Fuller and Ruckman in the third, the entire KJVO movement has arisen, and every present-day KJV-onlyite is a direct descendant of these ill-informed men… Every KJVO advocate is a lineal descendant of Wilkinson, Ray, Fuller and Ruckman…” (p. 4)

“So then Wilkinson, when he had conceived, brought forth Ray, and Ray, when he was fullgrown, brought forth Fuller, Ruckman, Waite, Chick, Riplinger, Hyles, Bynum, ....” (p. 4)

Kutilek’s puzzling admission

Doug Kutilek is very straightforward and specific that “Every KJVO advocate is a lineal descendant of Wilkinson, Ray, Fuller and Ruckman…” Yet, his own statements in the same article undermine his claims. Notice also that he writes:

“In 1930, he [Benjamin G. Wilkinson] wrote Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, a book of several hundred pages which attracted almost no attention in its day…” (p. 1) 

“Wilkinson’s book lay unused and unknown…until 1955 when J. J. Ray…published a little volume, God Wrote Only One Bible…” (p. 1)

So, Kutilek creates his own problem when he notes that Wilkinson’s book “attracted almost no attention in its day” and “lay unused and unknown” until J. J. Ray included much of Wilkinson’s work in his book God Wrote Only One Bible.[i] While Wilkinson’s book was “unused and unknown,” one Baptist preacher in Canada was actively and widely promoting the King James Bible as the inerrant Bible for Christians. 

Bible Bill Aberhart

“William ‘Bible Bill’ Aberhart was very much a home-grown Canadian…Mr. Aberhart also believed in the inerrancy of the King James Version of the Bible, claiming that the text on which the KJV is based had been preserved by God in the Swiss Alps, beyond contamination of the Roman Catholic Church.

“In the 1920s, Mr. Aberhart began broadcasting Sunday School lessons over the radio in Calgary. By 1935, he was broadcasting five hours every Sunday over several stations, reaching hundreds of thousands of people.” “God: Americans Spread Gospel northward,” The Ottawa Citizen (Ottawa, Ontario, Canada), Saturday, June 20, 1998, p. B3.

I will hope to write more about William Aberhart at another time, but for now I want to notice the following points: 

• Aberhart can fairly be described as a King James Onlyist.
• He taught Waldensian theory of Bible preservation of the true text.
• He started a radio program in 1925 that within 10 years could be described as “reaching hundreds of thousands of people.” 
• He started a Bible Institute in Calgary, Alberta in 1927 (which taught his views on the King James Bible).
• Noticeably, both the radio program and Bible Institute preceded Benjamin Wilkinson, on the other side of North America, publishing Our Authorized Bible Vindicated in 1930.
• Associates and students of Aberhart, such as Cyril Hutchinson and Mark Buch, promoted the King James Bible at an early date.

Doug Kutilek’s theory fails on several counts.

Fails to account for his own statements about the initial obscurity of Wilkinson’s work.

As noted above (and will be developed in the future, Lord willing), the influence of William Aberhart among Baptists developed at least 30 years before J. J. Ray brought Benjamin Wilkinson’s work out of obscurity. Aberhart’s student Mark Buch was actively promoting the King James Bible before Ray printed his book in 1955. Many bold Baptists arose to defend the King James Bible and unmask the Revised Standard Version before Ray got around to reviving Wilkinson’s work. 

Fails to clarify that KJVO is not a Seventh-Day Adventist doctrine.

Kutilek asserts KJVO can be traced to a Seventh-Day Adventist, implying that Baptists, fundamentalists, and others have adopted their view of the King James Bible from the Adventists. While it is true that Wilkinson was an Adventist, it is not true that his view represents the denomination’s doctrine. In a reply to objections to his book, Wilkinson refers to a letter written by William Ambrose Spicer (President of the General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists, 1922–1930), in which Spicer stated “that this denomination, by years of usage, has taken no position on the comparative merits of the Bible translations.” See also “The E. G. White Counsel on Versions of the Bible” to see that the leader Ellen G. White favorably referenced other Bible translations.

Fails to acknowledge multiple streams of origin for KJVO. 

Kutilek limits the origin of KJVO to the stream he apparently thinks is the most damning (Seventh-Day Adventism). I have demonstrated on my blog historical examples of versions of “King James Onlyism” well before Benjamin Wilkinson (before his birth, much less his book). The Tennessee Association of Baptists “established the Authorized King James Version of the Holy Bible as its standard” in their 1817 meeting. When the Barren River Association of Baptists organized in 1830, they included as their first Article of Faith: “We believe the scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as translated by the authority of King James, to be the words of God, and is the only rule of faith and practice.” Are we to assume that such bodies as these had no heirs and no influence?

Additionally, Kutilek’s notion supposes that individual Christians and Bible-believing congregations could not develop on their own the idea that the Bible they hold in their hands and read with their eyes is the inspired word of God without the documents and directions of Wilkinson, Ray, and Fuller.

Fails to justify using “modern KJVO movement” to explain a sole origin.

When proponents of the Kutilek Wilkinsonian-Origin Only (KWO) theory are shown prior historical existence of the King James Only view, some deflect with the weasel words “modern” and “movement.” In One Bible Only (p. 44) Kutilek writes, “the modern King James-Only movement is not without precedent, although no traceable connection exists between those of the nineteenth century who held such a view with those of the latter part of the twentieth century.”

Perhaps Our Authorized Bible Vindicated is the first book of its kind vindicating the King James Bible (though there seems to be little reason to exclude the 1924 Which Version by Philip Mauro).[ii] King James detractors can play with the words “modern” and “movement,” arguing that there was not a “King James Only Movement” prior to the fundamentalists who found and promoted Wilkinson’s ideas. There really was no need for a KJVO “movement” prior to advanced efforts to replace it with other English Bibles. This went into high gear beginning in the mid-20th century.

Conclusion

Through the reproduction of it by J. J. Ray and David Otis Fuller, Our Authorized Bible Vindicated took its place in the larger debate about the King James Bible and replacement versions. There is no attempt or need to deny that fact. However, a counter fact is that the “KWO” theory of the rise of King James Onlyism is a tunnel vision look into history, a polemic designed to fight King James Onlyism by setting its conception in Seventh-Day Adventism. If left as a half-truth, it is an untruth. As a polemic, I suppose it serves its purpose. As an historical investigation, KWO is deficient.

Perhaps a better approach and fuller understanding is that, faced with the threat of the Revised Standard Version in the early 1950s, to support their polemic against it, conservatives, evangelicals, and fundamentalists resorted to earlier works vindicating the Authorized (King James) Version of the Bible against the Revised Version – works by John William Burgon, Philip Mauro, and Benjamin G. Wilkinson.[iii] They used what they thought supported the cause.[iv] As an historical investigation, let us seek the whole truth.

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[i] I am unsure whether Kutilek means Wilkinson’s book attracted little attention generally, or whether it was mostly unknown outside of Seventh-Day Adventist circles. Regardless of what Kutilek meant, it seems the latter is correct. Within Adventism itself, there was pushback against Wilkinson’s book and view. He later produced Answers to Objections to Our Authorized Bible to answer his critics. In contrast to the impression given by Kutilek, in his book In Discordance with the Scriptures, Peter Johannes Thuesen (p. 65) notes that “Wilkinson made no reference to his Seventh-day Adventist affiliation in Our Authorized Bible Vindicated, concentrating instead on issues of broad evangelical appeal.” (I believe there are a couple of places where he quotes from Ellen White’s The Great Controversy.)
[ii] Mauro concluded that the Greek text behind the English Revised Version was corrupt and that the Authorized Version in translation was “vastly superior” to the RV of 1881 (p. 117). It is also notable that, while Kutilek keys on Fuller’s use of Wilkinson, Fuller also reproduced much of Mauro’s work in his 1978 book True or False. No doubt Kutilek would not want to attribute some of the origin of King James Onlyism to someone who contributed to The Fundamentals!

[iii] “Indeed, treatises by the Revised Version’s most colorful opponents—Burgon, Mauro, and Wilkinson—would enjoy a remarkable shelf-life as late twentieth-century Protestant conservatives reprinted them as virtual classics.” (Thuesen, ibid., p. 65) John William Burgon (1813-1888) was an Anglican minister and author. He became the Dean of Chichester Cathedral in 1876. He is best remembered for his passionate defense of the historicity and inerrancy of the Bible, and his opposition to the Bible revision headed up by Westcott and Hort. He wrote several works in reference to this controversy (general knowledge). Philip Mauro (1859-1952) was a lawyer, author, and member of the Christian & Missionary Alliance. A prolific writer, his works covered topics such as creation & evolution, eschatology, and Bible versions. Mauro contributed essays to the 12-volume The Fundamentals: A Testimony to The Truth, and produced Which Version in 1924. His motto was “Scripture interprets Scripture.” (Champion of the Kingdom: the Story of Philip Mauro, Gordon P. Gardiner). Benjamin George Wilkinson (1872-1968) was a Seventh-day Adventist dean, administrator, evangelist, and author. Born in Canada and began to study for the ministry at Battle Creek College in 1891. He received a BA degree from the University of Michigan in 1897 and in 1908 he received a PhD degree from George Washington University He wrote Our Authorized Bible Vindicated in 1930 (Seventh-day Adventist Encyclopedia, Revised Edition, 1976, page 1609).

[iv] It is fascinating to notice that leaders who stood united against the Revised Standard Version later divided over the issue of the King James Version versus new/other translations. For example, Carl McIntire, David Otis Fuller, John R. Rice, Robert L Sumner.

Doug Kutilek, circa 1989

William Aberhart, circa 1935

Benjamin Wilkinson, date unk.